Trust
by kates1304
Summary: Connie and Ric
1. The Morning After the Night Before

_She stood in front of the full-length mirror, surveying her appearance with satisfaction. In a dark red dress that highlighted her generous curves accessorised only by a thin silver bracelet and a clutch bag that matched the exact shade of the dress, she knew that he would be unable to resist her. He would tell her that she looked breathtaking and perhaps for a short time, she would allow herself to believe him. She would smile coyly and adjust her dress allowing him a brief glimpse of the delicate lace underwear that encased her breasts, knowing that it would send him while with lust and anticipation and then they would leave in separate cars, arriving separately at the party and behaving as friends, not lovers. It was easier that way – to keep work and play so firmly separate allowed her to maintain the pretence that she was on a different plane to those who she worked with. God forbid they should discover that there was a human bone in her body. She knew that he resented the fact that she insisted on keeping him under wraps but she also knew that he understood. _

'Morning' Ric leaned languidly against the doorframe, a smile snaking lazily across his face as he watched her snoring lightly, lost in a post over-indulgence slumber. For a long time, she didn't reply but when he repeated himself, a hand crept out from beneath the sheets and pressed tightly over her eyes as light spilled in through the thin gauze curtains that covered the full length-bay windows that she had fallen in love with the moment she first stepped into the bedroom. At the time she had given little thought to the torment that would arise from them when she awoke with a hangover; she saw only their beauty and entertained romantic images of waking alongside her husband and spending lazy days in the large bed only stopping gazing out at the garden to turn and look into each other's eyes. It hadn't worked out that way.

'Go away' she mumbled, rolling over and pulling a pillow over her head to protect her from the assault on her senses 'it's the middle of the night'

'It's midday Connie' he sighed gently, moving closer to the bed and pulling the covers away from her 'you need to get up'

'I don't _need_ to do anything' she retorted dully, too hungover and miserable for her voice to carry much conviction 'It's Sunday, I'm nearly forty years old and if I want to spend the whole day in bed feeling sorry for myself then I will' she added petulantly, pulling the covers back over her trembling white limbs that he had exposed, even her liberal application of false tan not succeeding in covering up the all over pallor that had come as a result of her hangover.

'You'd feel better if you had a shower' he remarked sagely, sitting beside her and sipping a coffee, watching with a vague sense of satisfaction as she grimaced, the aroma turning her stomach.

'I suppose you're going to tell me that this is no less than I deserve after last night' she told him bitterly, shuffling across the bed away from him, one hand placed delicately on top of her stomach, as if the contact would somehow stop it from churning.

'I wasn't actually, but if you want me to I will' a devilish smile crossed his face as he relented and drained his drink, putting the mug far out of her reach and lying back on the bed beside her 'You did get pretty…'

'Drunk. I know. I made a complete spectacle of myself and will by now be the talk of the hospital. You don't have to remind me, it's not a complete blank'

'Considering the amount of alcohol you consumed last night, by rights it should be' he eyed her with a look of curious amusement for a while 'was there a reason for last night's excess?'

'It was an open bar…'

'Which you drained' he finished for her with a smug smile 'how much do you actually recall about what you said last night?'

'I believe I shared some frank views on other members of staff with the assembled congregation' she stated carefully, wincing at the memory 'I told everyone that Zubin had been a sanctimonious hypocrite, that Diane was pathetic and that Chrissie… oh God, did I really say that?'

'That you swore that you'd seen her prostituting herself in Holby Central Station? Yes, you did. I believe you also said that she couldn't even give it away…' a smile crossed his lips as he imparted this piece of information 'but out of everyone, she was the only person who really deserved it'

'Is that the worst of it?' she enquired with trepidation, groaning quietly as he shook his head with an air of triumph, a smile spreading slowly across his mouth.

'You informed Tricia that the world would have been a better place if she had learnt the meaning of the world contraception and that you couldn't fathom how two people as nondescript as Tricia and Mark produced such a loathsome little tart. You then proceeded to announce to the room that you didn't miss your husband at all – that he was bad in bed – and then you cried'

'Ric, if I ever so much as look at a bottle of vodka again, _please_ shoot me' she whimpered slightly, glancing up from her position curled in a ball with her head buried into a pillow, hiding her shame from the world.

'I tried to stop you' he informed her slightly smugly 'not very hard I admit. I didn't want you turning on me, you see. You know far too much that I didn't want announcing to an assembled party of our colleagues in the midst of your drunken rant'

'I'd never betray some of the things you told me' she whispered, going from mortified to mortally offended in one very quick step 'I thought you trusted me'

'Sober there's no one I trust more. Believe me, that part of your brain that kicks in before your mouth says something stupid was temporarily inactive last night, and I didn't want to take the risk' he frowned slightly and then reached out, stroking her face gently 'it doesn't mean that I love you any less'

'Don't use that word' she snarled slightly, pulling away from him and wrapping a bathrobe around her before stalking across the cold polished wooden panels towards the bathroom 'Michael used to say that, generally directly before he betrayed me'

'I'm not going to betray you Connie' he sighed gently, freezing to the spot as she glared at him, her barriers shooting up around her once again and he wanted to groan. He had spent weeks, _months_, attempting to break through them and yet sometimes all his hard work would be undone in one easy step and it would take days, sometimes weeks, for the damage to be repaired.

'Michael used to say that too' she snapped slightly, flinching away as he reached out to touch her, his hand barely grazing the soft skin of her forearm.

'Don't you trust me at all' he asked dully as she twitched with tension, her gaze flicking between her chosen escape route of the bathroom and the man that blocked her path, all at once taking on the expression of captured prey.

'This isn't about whether I trust you' she stalled slightly, her eyes widening as she pulled her gown more tightly around her, her naked state beneath the thin silk suddenly seeming inappropriate in the face of his latest line of questioning. She had always loathed conversations like this, yet Ric didn't seem able to get enough of them.

'This is only about your lack of trust in me Connie' he sighed sadly 'its about the fact that you don't trust _anyone_. We've been doing this for what? Five months now. I've told you things that not another living soul knows and you've told me precisely nothing'

'There's nothing to tell' she retorted quietly, flushing as he gave her a look filled with hurt and doubt. They both knew that she was lying.

'Oh come on Connie, no one's a blank sheet, not even you. Especially not you' his voice took on a cajoling quality and he reached out, taking her hand and attempting to pull her down beside him on the bed but she resisted 'talk to me Connie, please' his voice was wheedling, his eyes pleading but still she resisted, her own gaze taking on a frosty gaze. Under the right circumstances she loved to see a man reduced to begging but not when it was Ric. Not like this.

'I'm going for a shower' she pulled out of his grasp forcefully and stood staring back at him, rubbing her wrist where his tight grip had left an angry red ring on her delicate skin.

'Fine' his tones were clipped and angry as she moved into the bathroom, pausing only to glance back at him, an apologetic expression in her eyes. It was a vicious circle – he would never understand why she refused to open up unless she explained and she would never explain unless she opened up to him. It was why they had no future.


	2. Runaway

** _Runaway_**

Slamming and locking the bathroom door behind her, she turned on the shower to the hottest setting that was still bearable, letting her gown drop to the floor as the plumes of steam rose from the bath and enveloped her in their warmth. Turning to look at herself in the mirror, she saw droplets of water running down her face and allowed herself a small smile – it was impossible to tell where the condensation on her skin ended and the tears began and that was just how she liked it. Quickly her hair grew clammy and she reached out, taking a hair tie and pulling those few strands that were long enough back from her face in a rough ponytail, feeling a pang of satisfaction at the air of youth that the automatic facelift from her tight ponytail gave her. She wasn't sure what it was that had made her want to grow her hair – perhaps it was a deep fear that her trademark severe crop aged her prematurely or perhaps it was simply that having to spend hours blow-drying her hair every morning was a lot like hard work but she liked her new look. Curls fell softly around her face, framing her hazel eyes and full lips, giving her features an air of softness that had been absent from them with her old style. Most pleasingly, Ric adored her new look, spending hours toying with the curls that sat in the nape of her neck, peppering the skin that showed between them with gentle kisses that sent shivers of contentment through her body.

Smiling at the memory, she reached for a bottle of invigorating shower gel and placed it in the bottom of the shower cubicle, reaching for a sponge and laying it beside the shower gel, finally pulling her hair once again from the ponytail and shaking her head as if in an advert for shampoo, enjoying the sensation of hair gently brushing against her neck. Outside she heard him moving around the bedroom, doubtless collecting his belongings, preparing to take his flight from his emotionally crippled lover. She couldn't say she blamed him – her permanent state of angst and distrust was a lot for anyone to handle, especially someone with a self-destruct button almost as sensitive as her own. Even so, as she heard his retreating footfall down the hall towards the stairs, she felt a surge of antipathy for him that was almost as great as the loathing she directed at herself for pushing him so far. He claimed to love her. To worship the ground that she walked on, and yet as soon as the waters got a little stormy he would be off, running back to the sanctuary of his little bedsit on the far side of town where he spent the weeks, making the journey to her plush house in the country every weekend to spend three wonderful nights and two gloriously lazy days beside her. During the weekends they couldn't get enough of each other, yet during the week it returned to business as usual. Sniping in the theatre, battles in the boardroom and the occasional quickie in an office if they shared a spare fifteen minutes between operations. None of their colleagues knew anything about their relationship because Connie insisted on discretion above all else and Ric was happy to go along with that and avoid the inevitable backlash that would ensure when Jess realised that they shared more than a professional relationship. It was an unconventional relationship; a state of affairs that Connie repeatedly insisted was overrated, but it worked for them. Or at least she liked to think it did, but she knew that she was wrong. She could enjoy his company, feel utterly protected by his embrace and totally adored as he gently made love to her but she could never allow herself to trust him. Trust was a commodity that was in extremely short supply in Connie and what little she had ever had, Michael had callously stolen from her, betraying her over and over again until the grand scale of his deception had destroyed their relationship like a guided missile aimed at the heart of their marriage. Her trust in him had destroyed the first long standing relationship that she had ever had and her utter inability to trust looked like it was going to destroy the second. Sometimes life wasn't fair.

Stepping from the house he made fast progress along the drive, gravel crunching underfoot as he made his way to his own car that sat, a slightly sorry sight beside Connie's exquisite sports car. It was a cold day and the crisp February air made the hairs on his arms stand on end but he barely noticed the physical discomfort of the chill over the pain of the emotions that churned through him. This argument was getting to be an increasingly familiar occurrence and he was still as confused by it as he had been the first time she had lashed out at him, pushing him away even though in her eyes, he could see that she hated herself for it. To an extent he could understand why she was as guarded and brittle as she was – Michael had betrayed her in one of the worst ways possible and it was only natural that she would have some reservations about putting her trust in another man, yet still he resented being tarred with the same brush as her ex-husband. Surely she could see that he was different – that he wouldn't have the greed, nor the callous disregard for her feelings to betray her as Michael had done, but still she refused to give him the trust that he so craved. She knew as well as he did that her lack of faith in him was slowly poisoning their perfect relationship but he also knew that she was too damn stubborn to change her ways.

Glancing up at the house he saw her step from the shower, uninhibitedly walking into the bedroom utterly naked, it not occurring to her to close the curtains. But there was no reason why it would – her house was so secluded that she knew the only person likely to catch a glimpse of her state of undress had seen it all before and had no need to creep around outside windows to partake of that particularly beautiful view. Watching her move around the bedroom, bending to make the bed and flicking through her wardrobe to find something to wear, he felt strangely sordid and yet utterly riveted by what he saw. He knew she wouldn't mind – she was the sort of woman who would find the idea of her lover inadvertently being treated to a strip show while he sat in his car a massive turn on. In fact, he half suspected that she intended for him to see her. That she wanted him entice him back to her so that they could, as planned, spend the next twenty four hours or so in her bed, eating croissants smeared with rich creamy butter and sipping steaming hot coffee as they perused the array of tabloids and broadsheets that she had delivered on a daily basis. She expected him to forget about their earlier disagreement and return to her, never again mentioning the fact that she persistently kept everything that wasn't common knowledge buried deep below her particularly attractive surface. It was as if she was so ashamed by something that she thought that he would be revolted by her, and no amount of him asserting that it would be impossible for him to go off her could make her relent. Under normal circumstances perhaps he would have gone back but not today. Last weekend he had, in a fit of desperation, bared his soul to her, pleading with her to tell him something, anything, about her mysterious past, but still she refused. He had told her the thing that he was most ashamed of and yet she wouldn't even tell him whether she had any siblings. It was as if she was pretending that her life only started in the moment that she rode onto AAU on a trolley with blood spattered on her shirt, but he knew that she was concealing something. When his final desperate attempt had failed he felt his feelings for her were shaken somewhat, and for the first time he found himself starting to wonder whether she was worth the trouble.

She stood in the window, pulling the quilt around her to protect what little modesty she had left as she watched him turn the key in the ignition without so much as a backwards glance. So that was that then.


	3. Tell Me Lies

He got to the end of the road before the urge to turn back became unbearable. He had seen her, watching as he left, the quilt wrapped around her body like a soft cocoon, the expression of devastation on her face that she had finally succeeded in pushing him away and he could well imagine the tears that glistened in her eyes, threatening to spill over if only her pride would allow it. He wasn't sure why it bothered him so much that she refused to share anything with him; a large part of his brain said that Michael had been her past but he could have her future, if only he could stop pushing her to reveal details of things she'd prefer to keep hidden. Surely she was entitled to keep secrets and perhaps she was right when she said that if he truly loved her, her past would be unimportant and it wouldn't matter that she didn't want to share her most intimate secrets with him. But this was about more than simply her choosing not to tell him about her past – it was about the fact that she didn't trust him not to judge her on previous mistakes. Perhaps it was because Michael had taken her trust and abused it, breaking it until something pure and beautiful had become bitter and twisted. Now, it seemed, she no longer had any trust left to give, only bitter suspicions of anyone who tried to care for her. Worse still, she believed that talk of love was merely a tool employed by someone who wanted to take advantage of her and mislead her into trusting him. The first time Ric had mentioned that he loved her, she had bristled, leaping from the bed as if on fire and disappearing for hours. Even when she returned she had barely spoken to him and it had taken almost two weeks to repair the damage that had been done. A part of him was more than a little hurt by her reaction – for the first time in his life he had told a woman that he loved her because it was true, not because it was something that she needed to hear and she had reacted as if he had spoken an obscenity. Eventually she had apologised but he had never dared say those words again without a note of amusement in his voice. If she thought that he was joking, her reaction was considerably less extreme.

Spinning the car in a swift u-turn he began to drive back the way he came, speeding past all to familiar landmarks; the avenue of oak trees that lined her street, the pub on the corner where they spent Sunday lunchtimes when they ventured out of the house and the park where they would take a picnic on days when the whether permitted. It was like a road map of their relationship, showing all their regular haunts, each one loaded with memories, and at the end of it was the place where they spent the most time of all. Her house, the place that felt more like home to him than anywhere he'd ever lived before. It wasn't because it was luxuriously decorated, expensively furnished and had the novelty of working central heating, although all of these things helped. He loved it because it had her.

Alone in her bedroom she felt the tears trickle down her face as he disappeared from view. It no longer mattered if she cried openly – there was no one there to witness her tears which was exactly how she liked it. If there was one thing that she couldn't stand, it was releasing her emotions in front of an audience, even if it was just Ric, all though she had to admit that there was a certain downside. Without an audience there was rarely any comfort to be found when she broke down but then there wasn't always comfort when there was someone with her – on numerous occasions she had shed a quiet tear while Michael hovered beside her, an expression of absolute horror on his face and not the first idea of how to handle the situation and on other occasions, people mistakenly thought that the way to handle her tears was to pretend that she wasn't crying. There was no middle ground – even Ric hadn't yet worked out that when the tears started, what she really wanted was for someone to put their arms around her and tell her that it would be alright. Outside, she heard a bird, singing quietly in the oak tree that stood just beyond her bedroom window. Normally she liked the gentle sounds and smells of nature that travelled into her bedroom from the outside but today they felt intrusive so she reached out and shut the window, not for the first time thankful that Michael had insisted on double-glazing when they moved in.

The next pressing issue to deal with was the fact that she wasn't wearing any clothes. Ric didn't think she'd seen him looking up at her, seeing exactly what he was missing out on by running away and then deciding to leave anyway. Apparently the prospect of great sex didn't balance out the difficulties entailed in having sex with an emotional cripple. Muttering bitterly to herself about the injustices in the world and particularly the uselessness of the male of the species, she rooted through the wardrobe, searching for something suitable to wear. It being a Sunday her usual work attire of smart trousers and fitted tops seemed inappropriate and she didn't really do casual clothes. When she'd been married to Michael he liked her to dress smartly at all times – the first time he'd seen her in jeans he'd behaved like she'd walked out in the emperors new clothes and she'd never worn them again. After they divorced, she hadn't had a lot of call for casual clothes; she spent the entire day at the hospital and when she returned home she would go straight to bed in Michael's old pyjamas. Now with Ric there was even less call for clothes – they would come in on Friday night, strip before going to bed and not get dressed again until Monday morning when they came to go into work. Now though, her nakedness seemed utterly inappropriate, as did Michael's old pyjamas that had been festering in the bottom of the laundry bin since the day five months before when she'd bought Ric home from work with her and never looked back.

'What are you thinking?' a voice behind her made her jump and she wheeled around, pulling the duvet around her to cover her body as he surveyed her shock with amusement.

'What am I thinking? What are you thinking? You broke in' she hyperventilated quietly, the shock immediately replacing her tears with white rage.

'You gave me a key' he reminded her gently 'so I could come and go as I please during the weekend' he added, placing a gentle grip on her shoulders and steering her to the bed where he sat her, putting his arms around her, shocked to realise that she was trembling.

'You terrified me' she emitted a choked sob and buried her head against him 'you were so angry with me, it never occurred to me that you'd come back. Why couldn't you just ring the bell like a normal person?'

'I did' his brow furrowed slightly 'you wouldn't have heard me over your music' he added, reaching out and switching off the stereo turned up ridiculously loudly in a vain attempt to stop her feeling so alone in the vast house on her own.

'Why did you come back?' she asked eventually, pulling from him and gazing up into his face, a look of puzzlement playing across her features as she looked into his eyes 'I thought you'd finally seen sense and realised that you were wasting your time with me'

'I admit that you're more work than I anticipated' he admitted cautiously, reaching out to grip her wrist as she recoiled with hurt and anger 'but I think you're worth the effort'

'I'm flattered' she retorted bitterly, pulling away from him with an angry glare and finally selecting a t-shirt that she would normally wear for work and the long discarded jeans and pulling them on.

'But I'd like to know why you feel the need to be so defensive' he pressed gently, watching as her expression froze over with anger and her brow furrowed into deep trenches.

'This again?' there was a note of boredom and bitterness in her voice as she pushed past him, charging down the stairs and into the kitchen where she began to bang around, pulling out the wherewithal to make a salad for lunch 'It's getting really old, Ric'

'So talk to me' he pushed but he knew that it was useless. Once again, the legendary defences had gone up and, like with a physical barrier, he could no longer see the woman he loved. All he could see was the brittle and bitter woman who once intimidated him but he knew that beneath her harsh exterior there was another woman who just wanted to be loved.

'Talk about what?' she asked with a heavy sigh as she slammed two plates of mixed leaves, tomato and mozzarella on the table in front of them and immediately proceeded to pick at her food listlessly.

'Whatever you want?'

'Last nights TV' there was a note of irony in her voice – she knew that she was pushing him but now that her security was returning, she once again felt able to do so.

'You didn't watch any' he retorted with a smile as he called her bluff and her mouth fell open for a moment with surprise 'Tell me… tell me about your parents'

'Oh God, don't go all Freudian on me' she groaned dramatically and rolled her eyes as a single cherry tomato finally travelled between her lips and she chewed it thoughtfully, waiting for him to try again.

'I don't want to analyse how your parents fucked you up Connie' he sighed tiredly 'at this point I'd settle for knowing their names'

'Robert and Helen' she shrugged and he glanced up at her in shock – normally even asking her parents names would have resulted in a torrent of abuse and several weeks of no speakers. He certainly didn't expect her to tell him so easily.

'And where were you bought up?' he tried again, frowning slightly as she paused for a moment before replying;

'Small village in Essex' she told him wearily, suddenly seeming utterly defeated 'my mum died when I was seven and my dad remarried before my eighth birthday. Leah, my stepmother, was vicious and didn't like children. She especially didn't like snotty nosed eight year olds who were still getting over their mother's suicide…'

'Suicide?' he cut in, surprise evident in his voice 'I had no idea…'

'No, not many people do. Have you heard enough or do you want me to go on?' she enquired bitterly, clearly resenting every word that she spoke in a desperate attempt to pacify him and keep him beside her.

'Its up to you' he told her gently, taking her hand and running his finger across its palm affectionately 'I'm not going to push you…'

'Good' she snapped, her tones clipped as she began to nibble on a single leaf of spinach balanced on the end of her fork, desperately trying to disguise the flush that crept up her face. Here he was, so delighted that finally she had been enticed to confide something in him and yet he hadn't gained the small victory that he believed was his. If anything they were worse off – he had just forced her to tell him a lie.


	4. Snowed Under

The rest of the day passed in companionable silence, hours spent lying in each other's arms in front of the log burning fire, sipping vintage whiskey that Ric had uncovered from Michael's secret stash, finding no need to speak to each other. Sometimes, words were simply an unnecessary distraction and as she lay in his arms, the glow from the fire illuminating her features with a warm glow that she did not feel, she didn't think that she could have articulated a coherent sentence if she wanted to. Occasionally she would glance up at him, catching his eyes and seeing the confusion in their depths as he struggled to assimilate what she had told him earlier in the day. Whatever it was he had expected to hear, it wasn't that her mother had killed herself and left her at the mercy of an uncaring father and cruel stepmother. While unexpected, it was a shockingly plausible story and she knew this when she concocted it while preparing their lunch. Eventually he cleared his throat as if to speak and she pressed a solitary finger to his lips, silencing him without speaking a word herself. She knew from his face that he had spent _hours_ searching for the right thing to say in response to her admission; to her lie. How was he possibly to know that the last thing she wanted was any kind of response from him – any kind of pity or sympathy at her troubled childhood. Sympathy was the last thing she deserved – she had lied to him because the alternative was telling him the truth. If he knew the truth then he would hate her as much as she hated herself. Self-loathing she had learned to live with; being loathed by someone she respected as much as she respected Ric was a different kettle of fish entirely. The very idea of it was unbearable.

'Connie, I…' he tried as soon as her finger was withdrawn and immediately she replaced it with her lips, silencing him this time with a kiss, the sensation of her dry, tense lips against his still speaking ones feeling as unnatural to her as it did to him. Even so, it was a necessity if she was to resist, or at least minimise the crippling guilt that threatened to overcome her every time she looked into his deep, kind eyes.

'Don't say anything. _Please_ don't say anything' she begged, a pleading gaze meeting his eyes and as requested, he kept quiet. Looking at him, she knew that he thought that she simply hated anyone pitying her for things that had happened long ago in her past. He had no idea.

After a while, he took her hand and pulled her to her feet, leading her gently towards the stairs, nothing to be heard expect the gentle footfall of their bare feet on the stripped wooden boards of the stairs. Arriving at the bedroom he opened the door and led her inside, pushing her down on the bed and lying beside her, his arms around her as he attempted to kiss her, surprised when he met resistance.

'No?' he enquired with amazement in his voice as she pulled away and stood up, making brisk strides to the French doors where she stood with her back to him, gazing out at the darkness of the garden, her arms folded tightly across her chest.

'I can't Ric' she turned to him, an expression of hurt and shame on her face although he didn't know why. He inferred that it had something to do with her earlier revelation but this was not the response he anticipated from her – generally anything that transpired, be it good or bad, would only serve to increase Connie's desire for him. The fact that she seemed unable to bear his proximity concerned him greatly.

'Come back to bed' he asked after several tense moments had passed 'I promise you, I won't touch you again if you don't want me to'

'I need to be alone' there were tears in her eyes as she turned back to him, her face suddenly so cold and expressionless that he felt a shiver run down his spine 'you can sleep on the sofa if you've drunk too much to drive'

'Connie…' he began but stopped himself. It was futile; she had once again retreated behind barriers so well constructed that he knew he had no hope of breaking them down and getting close to her when she was in this state.

'Please…' she pleaded slightly and he nodded, backing from the room and making his way to the sofa, his reluctance to leave having more to do with the fact that he wasn't about to abandon her in the state that she was in than the fact that after three glasses of whiskey, driving would be very foolish indeed

As he lay alone on the sofa, listening to the gentle sounds of her sobbing echoing throughout the house, knowing her well enough not to intrude on hear tears, he had never felt so useless or so guilty. All he had wanted when he had pushed for her to confide in him was to feel trusted. It had never occurred to him that her problem was not one of trust, but one of a past so painful that talking about it was almost more than she could bear. Selfishly he had bullied her into discussing an event that she had clearly tried to put behind her and now she was pushing him away. He only had himself to blame.

He wasn't aware of dropping off until he awoke three or four hours later to complete silence. Eventually he made his way lethargically upstairs and was surprised to note that he was creeping so as not to alert her to his increasing proximity. Pushing open the door he saw her fast asleep, clearly having exhausted herself with the tears that still left tell tale tracks down her cheeks. Not wishing to disturb her now he was satisfied that she was okay he turned and made his way back down the stairs and into the kitchen where he set about making himself a cup of coffee. Once the drink was ready he opened the back door and stepped out into the garden, shutting the door behind him and perching on the edge of a sunlounger made from split wood, clearly worse for wear having been neglected since the previous summer.

He didn't know how he sat there for; he was aware of the chill removing sensation from his extremities and eventually, he stopped feeling the cold. It was only when the sun peeked over the horizon that he started to consider going inside, rubbing his arms and legs furiously in an attempt to restore circulation.

'You're freezing' there was a note of accusation and concern in her voice as she stepped forward, relieving him of his long-since emptied cup and putting her arms around him, holding him tightly 'what were you doing out there?'

'Thinking' he mumbled as she steered him toward the sofa and sat him down, putting her arms around him and rubbing him gently in an attempt to warm him up 'I didn't mean to upset you'

'It's okay' she whispered gently, holding him even more tightly 'you didn't know'

'I shouldn't have pushed you' he continued mournfully and on this point she agreed with a barely perceptible nod but there was no anger or resentment 'I promise, I won't push you again…'

'That's all I needed to hear' she whispered as she pulled him closer to her, burying his face against her body and kissing his head gently. As she held him he didn't see the guilt in her eyes.


	5. Heartbreaker

'Come in…' Ric glanced up at the timid knock on his door and was surprised to see Connie standing in the doorway, wringing her hands nervously and occasionally glancing furtively over her shoulders, as if checking that there was no audience.

'Thanks' she stepped inside and shut the door behind her, moving swiftly over to the sofa and perching nervously on the edge of it, stroking the soft leather with a smile lingering on her face 'You know if this sofa could speak…'

'It would have a few interesting stories to tell' he nodded, his brow furrowed with concern as she changed the subject 'you look nervous'

'I was wondering' she paused, biting her lip tensely for a moment before continuing 'I know its Tuesday and you only usually come at weekends but… would you like to come around tonight?'

'Sure' his brow furrowed slightly with concern at her sudden change of heart. In their first few weeks together, he had pressed her to let him visit during the week but she always refused and he had been left with no choice but to accept her decision 'What's bought this on?'

'I uh…' she flushed slightly, gazing intently past him and out at the block of flats that his office overlooked, steadfastly refusing to meet his eyes with hers 'I missed you last night'

'You missed me?' a small smile played across his lips as he stood up, putting his arms around her and kicking the door closed and reaching one hand away from her to lock it before turning back to her.

'It's a big house and its better suited to two people rather than one' she shrugged dismissively 'I wasn't really sure what to do with myself when you weren't there'

'What do you do with yourself on the other 4 nights every week when I'm not there?' he asked, an expression of amusement on his face as she nodded, leaning against him, convinced that nobody was likely to walk in on them.

'I… drink mostly' she flushed slightly 'a large glass of wine, a hot bath and the TV. It just didn't seem so alluring last night on my own. In fact, it seemed rather sad, especially since I knew you were sitting somewhere on the other side of town feeling the same way'

'How do you know I wasn't out clubbing?' he asked, the mock offence in his face growing as she started to laugh, her whole body shaking with amusement as she remained in his arms 'You could at least try and pretend that it isn't totally ridiculous'

'What? That you'd go clubbing? You'd probably bump into one of your children and traumatise them for life and God knows what you'd make of the music – they don't play disco any more'

'What do they play then?' he blinked slightly, looking more confused when she shrugged dismissively 'Is it that dreadful baseline stuff that Amy plays the whole time?'

'Which one was Amy again?' Connie asked wearily, long since having lost track of the Griffin children, especially as she'd met only two of them.

'Third oldest, first by my fourth wife. Well third if you only count Lola once' he flushed slightly as Connie stifled a snigger.

'Its probably the same thing – bass line and a lot of swearing. They used to play it a lot at the balls Michael took me to – his preferred breed of well endowed, brainless bimbo couldn't get enough of it'

'Didn't you mind going to the parties knowing that his intention was to pick up a girl and take them up to his room?' Ric asked, slightly curious as Connie peered up at him, considering his question before answering, a small frown furrowing her brow.

'Of course I minded. I mean, it wasn't nice, going to parties knowing that at the end of the evening my husband would be in our bed with another woman while I drank myself into a stupor in the bar, but it was the best Michael could give me. I had his heart; the bimbo's got his body. Turns out they were both equally worthless' she finished slightly bitterly, her grip on Ric's upper arms tightening slightly as she spoke. He had seen her like this once before; so full of hurt and anger at her husband that it was visible to the naked eye, oozing from every pore, directed at the nearest person who was present in the absence of the cause of her unhappiness. The first time had been on the roof the week after she had stormed into his office, raging against the new clinical lead. Since that day he had been concerned, privately watching her, knowing how close to the edge she was. Knowing that she would never admit it to anyone. On that particular afternoon she had disappeared, cancelling her surgical list citing personal issues and leaving the hospital without speaking to anyone. It was only when Elliot Hope had tapped on his door, announcing timidly that Connie had taken the afternoon off and he was a little concerned about her that Ric realised that she had gone past breaking point and carried on going for as long as she could. Wherever she was, he suspected that she was breaking. He could never identify what it had been that drove him to the roof that day – it was as if he instinctively knew that she would be there, simply because it was where he would have gone in a similar situation and he knew that he and Connie weren't all that different.

When he stepped onto the roof he spotted her immediately, curled up against the bitter chill in the air, her arms wrapped around her knees in a tight embrace designed, he suspected, for comfort as much as warmth. Tears coursed down her cheeks, falling freely to the damp concrete ledge where she sat, several feet from the edge, still far to close for comfort. Not wanting to scare her he moved cautiously, eventually sitting beside her as he received no discouragement.

'What are you doing here?' she asked eventually through gasps bourn of sorrow and sheer coldness as the bitter wind blew over them.

'Looking for you' he replied quietly, putting an arm around her, feeling relief pass through him as she leaned against him, accepting the comfort that he offered

'Well you found me' she replied bitterly, still making no move to pull away from his embrace 'aren't you going to try and talk me down?'

'You're not on the edge' he shrugged cautiously, gripping her slightly tighter as he mentally added the word "yet" onto the end of his sentence

'Perhaps not physically…' she trailed off sadly 'mentally, emotionally, I think I just went over'

'What happened?'

'My husband got locked away' she snapped, glaring at him as though he was somehow stupid 'I lost my job, my marriage, my home…'

'Your home' he glanced down at her with surprise – he hadn't known that things were that bad 'I thought you were financially secure…'

'I got a letter from my solicitor today. As part of the divorce they want to sell the house and split the proceeds. God knows what Michael's solicitor thinks he's going to do with five hundred thousand pounds while he's serving a life sentence but I suppose it's the principle of the thing' she sighed sadly 'There are no children so no reason to let me keep the house – they seem to think they're doing me a favour by letting me stay put until its sold'

'I…' he paused, unsure what to say to her to make her feel better. He wasn't sure that there existed a set of words that would make her situation in any way better.

'You must think I'm being stupid. After all, its only bricks and mortar; it's not even as if I have any particularly happy memories of the place. Michael and I were on the rocks by the time we bought the place and it wasn't as if I kidded myself that we were ever going to be filling the place with a family. I barely even spend any time there…'

'It sounds to me' Ric remarked sagely, holding her a little more tightly as he weighed up the risks of what he was about to say 'as if you're trying to convince yourself that you're being stupid. I think you're being perfectly reasonable; it's your home and someone is trying to take it from you. The carving up of assets is always one of the worst parts of divorce'

'You should know' she emitted a bitter laugh 'will it always hurt this much?' she asked quietly and he shook his head, stroking her hair gently from her face

'No' he stated with certainly, shaking his head slowly 'it will take time but it will get better'

'I never noticed how much I relied on him' she admitted with a small flush in her cheeks 'the nights are very long without him and I don't really know how to pass the time in my own company'

'Well, if ever you want some company one evening, you know where to find me. I'm probably only heading home to a take away and an empty flat so I'd be more than happy to oblige'

'Will you come tonight' she glanced up at him, a gentle note of pleading in her voice and her eyes and he nodded

'Perhaps you'd let me take you home now…' he'd glanced at her, amazed when she'd agreed and he'd taken her, somehow ending up spending the whole weekend with her. After that, it had become a regular occurrence.

He arrived at the house after her having stopped off on the way to pick up a take away and a bottle of wine and for a moment, he didn't think that she was there but then he heard the music, floating down the stairs and he followed the sound, up the stairs all the way to the master bedroom. As he pushed open the door he saw her, standing in the shower, singing along to the music that blared out of the stereo as if she hadn't a care in the world. Perhaps he was wrong; perhaps she wasn't as troubled as he thought she was. Certainly seeing her singing away to herself in the shower, he couldn't believed that there was more going on under the surface, and yet he couldn't quite shake the feeling that there was something else, something more than she had told him that troubled her and made her cry out in the night in the midst of a nightmare. He couldn't shake the feeling that he had been lied to.


	6. Come Undone

'Will you stay?' she glanced up from the pile of washing up that she was surveying with foreboding. Never in her life had she realised that one person could create so much mess when making simple pasta and sauce out of a jar, but then Ric had taught her many things that she didn't realise were possible.

'You only say that so you can get out of doing the washing up' he remarked, glancing down at the stack of pans, wooden spoons, plates and other utensils in the sink.

'If I had realised quite how much mess you were going to make, I'd have done the cooking myself. My hands are my fortune – you can't seriously expect me to risk damaging them with washing up liquid' she whined slightly, running one of her delicate hands up and down his chest, smiling as he shuddered at her touch.

'Wear rubber gloves' he spluttered eventually, extricating himself from the situation before desire overcame him and he was forced to ravish her on the kitchen floor. He didn't think she'd complain but he suspected that she'd make him wash the floor afterwards.

'Spoil sport' she chided gently, turning back to the sink and turning the tap on the stack of pans, blasting a lot of the burnt on tomato sauce away with the pressure of the water and making a half assed attempt at scrubbing the remainder with a washing up brush 'next time you want to do something nice for me, a take away works just as well'

'Not as romantic though' he pointed out, wrapping his arms around her and nuzzling his face in her neck as she worked, slamming the final couple of pots onto the draining board and turning to him triumphantly.

'Not as much washing up' she corrected with a smile as she planted a kiss on his lips, frowning slightly as the phone began to ring, immediately making her heart speed up with fear. There was only one person in the world likely to phone her at this time and he was standing beside her so she was forced to draw the conclusion that it was bad news.

'Hello?' she answered softly and Ric's brow furrowed with confusion as the colour drained from her face and she dropped the phone with a crash as it landed on the polished parquet wood floor. He watched with morbid fascination as her knees buckled and then his legs started to move, almost on autopilot, driving him forward as he caught her before she crumpled to the ground.

'Connie?' he looked down at her ashen face and trembling body with panic and reached for the phone, cursing as he realised that it had been broken on impact 'what's wrong?'

'My dad' she whispered, pulling herself to her feet and smoothing out her skirt, her face clouding over as a her defence mechanisms kicked in.

'What about him?' he asked gently, fearing that he knew. Anything that knocked her off her feet in that manner was unlikely to be good news.

'Stroke…' she winced 'he didn't make it to the hospital. He's been gone for _hours_ and Leah only just thought to call me' there was bitterness in her voice as she groped around, her blinded by tears that refused to fall as she searched for her car keys.

'Where are you going?' Ric spotted the keys at the same time as she did but his reactions were faster and he swiped them from beneath her grasp, putting them safely in his pocket. There was no way she was driving anywhere in this state.

'The funeral is tomorrow morning. There are things to be arranged' she stated numbly, glaring at him for a moment with her hand outstretched, waiting for him to return her keys.

'I'm coming with you' he stated in a tone that brooked no argument

'Why?' she asked sullenly, rooting through the drawer for her spare set but again she was too slow and he whipped them from beneath her hand

'You're in no state to drive'

'I'll call a cab'

'You're upset'

'Its perfectly normal' she retorted, wiping a tear that finally escaped from her eye 'considering my father just died'

'I'm not saying it isn't' he moved forward, putting his arms around her and feeling her stiffen against his touch 'but you need someone to take care of you Connie. Come on, why not?'

'You have a shift in eight hours'

'I'll call in sick' he shrugged 'who's going to care?'

'People will talk if we both take days off together' she protested weakly, finally relenting and melting into his strong embrace, leaning wearily against his chest.

'Let them talk' he stated sombrely 'I don't care'

'I do' she attempted with desperation. In light of her earlier lie, she couldn't risk Ric meeting any of her family, especially not en masse at a family occasion with an open bar where getting utterly slaughtered was permissible. Added to which, he'd realise pretty quickly that her stepmother, while being almost criminally boring, was sweet more than she was vicious. If she let him come with then she'd be living in constant fear that someone would open their mouth and say something that would ruin everything.

'You shouldn't' he told her gently 'they'll talk anyway – most of those nurses live for gossip and where there isn't any, they'll make it up'

'You're not going to take no for an answer?' she stated resignedly and he shook his head, closing his fingers around her car keys in his pocket and holding them out to her.

'Do you trust me to drive it?'

'More than I trust myself right now' she sighed gently, allowing him to lead her out to the car and sit her in the passenger seat before moving wordlessly round to the driver side and climbing in, pushing the seat back to accommodate his longer legs as he started the car.

Pulling up outside her father's house he glanced sideways at her, reluctant to wake her. After a fitful hours crying in the passenger seat, trying to hide her true state from him, she had dropped off and he thought that she could probably do with all the sleep that she could get. Slowly me moved around to the passenger door and opened it, helping her to her feet, leaning her against him and half dragging her into the porch, ringing the doorbell and hoping against hope that someone was in.

'Hello?' a small elderly woman wearing a beige housecoat and a miserable expression answered the door and looked at Ric with surprise 'do I know you?'

'No' he gestured towards Connie and she nodded in understanding and reached out, helping the pair of them into the stiflingly warm house and shutting the door behind her.

'I'm Leah' she smiled, holding out a hand to him

'I'm Ric' he took her frail hand in his strong one and shook it gently 'I'm a friend of Connie's'

'So I see' she frowned slightly as she watched him lower his sleeping lover to the sofa and stroke her hair tenderly 'just friends?'

'Yes' he frowned slightly as the woman's watery grey eyes looked right though him. She was certainly very intense but he couldn't believe that she had a malicious bone in her body. She certainly didn't fit with the picture of a child-hating monster that Connie had described.

'Has she been drinking' Leah asked accusingly, gazing down at Connie's sleeping form and then leaning over her, apparently smelling her breath

'She had a glass of wine earlier' he shrugged 'no more than that'

'Hmm' the woman snorted in disbelief 'a glass of wine is always how it starts. Just keep an eye on her. She's _meant_ to be on the wagon'

'I uh…' Ric trailed off, stunned. He wasn't aware that Connie had ever been _off_ the wagon but watching her stepmother retreating into the kitchen to make tea, a picture of docility and kindness, he suspected there were many things that Connie had not been entirely honest about.


	7. Desperado

'What time is it?' Connie rubbed her face wearily as she came round from her fitful and all too brief sleep to find Ric lying beside her, propped up on one elbow, picking strands of hair from her forehead and pushing them gently to the side, his eyes glazed over with concentration on his mediocre task.

'Just gone nine. We arrived at three-ish but you were out for the count by the time we got here. I didn't like to wake you…' he yawned slightly, the grey pallor of his skin betraying the fact that he hadn't had a wink of sleep himself, his mind constantly running on overdrive, trying and ultimately failing to make sense of what Leah had told him.

'Thanks' she sat up, stretching her arms before curling them back close to her body and shivering slightly 'bloody woman always was stingy with the central heating' she muttered, getting up and rooting through the wardrobe on the far side of the room, eventually removing a bathrobe that looked like it hadn't seen daylight since the seventies and pulling it around her, still trembling slightly in the cold.

'I met your stepmother last night' he remarked neutrally as she came and sat beside him, pulling him so he was lying beside her, her limbs entangled with his as she held onto him tightly, needing his comfort although she would never admit it 'she's…'

'Nice' Connie finished with defeat in her voice 'believe me, she's mellowed with age. Dad was the same'

'She said something…' he eyed her with a curious smile and watched as the colour drained from her face with terror at what it was that her stepmother had told him. Not that Leah knew the worst of it – the things that she was really terrified of Ric knowing were secrets kept by only two people in the world– but she knew enough to leave Connie with some serious explaining to do.

'What?' Connie asked quickly; too quickly – it was obvious that she was concealing something and even more obvious that her mothers death was only the tip of a very deep iceberg.

'She said that you shouldn't be drinking…' he frowned slightly 'Apparently you're on the wagon'

'Oh God, that' Connie emitted a laugh filled with relief and flapped her arm dismissively 'I used to drink a bit when I was a teenager – probably a reaction to what my mother did as much as anything – and my father convinced himself that I had an alcohol problem. It was a complete overreaction but once I knew how much it upset him, I made a point of not drinking in front of him and Leah or coming home hungover. It just wasn't worth the hassle. It would seem that my dear stepmother has taken that as proof positive that I had an alcohol problem. I wouldn't pay any attention…'

'Really' Ric stated doubtfully, wondering how no matter how much overtime his imagination might be doing, Connie could always explain away even the strangest occurrences with a credible story and a flap of her wrist. Wondering why, despite the plausibility of her tale, he didn't quite believe her.

'Honestly Ric, do I look like a raging alcoholic?' she emitted a contemptuous laugh and gave him a gentle kiss on the cheek 'you're worrying about nothing and I bet you haven't had a wink of sleep, have you' she stated accusingly and he shook his head guiltily, resulting in an impatient roll of her eyes 'you must be exhausted – you wait here and I'll bring you up a cup of tea' she instructed, bending down and planting a kiss on his forehead before sweeping out of the room.

'Leah, a word' Connie strode into the kitchen with as much authority as one could while wearing a battered, moth eaten, pink bathrobe and matching pink frilly nightdress.

'Good morning dear' Leah ignored Connie's command and continued frying bacon and eggs on the stove, not even looking round to see her stepdaughter 'sleep well?'

'Very well' Connie snapped 'Leah, what precisely have you said to Ric?'

'Nothing. Well, only that you shouldn't be drinking, which is true' she gave Connie a stern look 'you were doing so well'

'I'm not on the meths Leah; I had one glass of wine. It's allowable in normal society' Connie retorted irately, taking two mugs from the cupboard and slamming them on the side, pointedly not offering to make her stepmother a cup of tea.

'He doesn't know' Leah stated with a smile of realisation crossing her face 'I thought he looked shocked. You should tell him; I'm rather surprised you haven't already'

'Oh of course' Connie snorted contemptuously 'because that's absolutely the first thing I should tell _everyone_ I meet after my name. "Hi, I'm Connie and if you leave me alone for five minutes with a bottle of gin, it probably won't still be there when you get back"'

'How long have you known Ric?' Leah enquired, ignoring the sarcasm

'Almost two years' Connie stated sheepishly, her eyes downcast as Leah surveyed her with displeasure.

'So it would hardly have been your opening gambit. Am I right in thinking that you spend rather a lot of time with him?' Connie nodded guiltily 'You should tell him' Leah repeated, slamming three plates of congealed bacon and eggs on the table in front of them 'He looks like the sort of man who'd understand'

'Oh, he'd understand' she rolled her eyes slightly 'he would be so understanding, I might have to kill him. And he'd want to know why'

'Connie sweetheart, we all want to know why' Leah reminded her with a kindly smile that wasn't bourn out in her voice 'your father went to his grave wanting to know what it was that made you act the way you do. But if you haven't told us in twenty odd years, you probably aren't likely to tell anyone, ever'

'I don't need to tell him, Leah. I haven't drunk to excess since I was in my twenties and I certainly don't intent to start now. If I choose not to share that aspect of my current…' she struggled for a word to describe Ric for a moment but found that there was none '…Ric, then that is my decision. You certainly aren't going to take it out of my hands by telling him yourself; do I make myself clear'

'Abundantly' Leah's tones were clipped as she sat down at the table and started to push a piece of bacon listlessly around the plate in pursuit of the egg 'go and call Ric, tell him that breakfast is ready. We'll need all the fortification we can get for today'

Outside the door, Ric froze, fearing that his vantage point was about to be discovered. His rumbling stomach had driven him downstairs at the smell of bacon but he had stopped as the voices of two irate women came into earshot, his appetite leaving him as he took in the content of the conversation that passed between them. As he suspected, Connie hadn't been entirely honest with him, but he wasn't remotely surprised by what he was hearing – from what Leah had said and her reaction to Ric's new-found knowledge, he had suspected that she probably drunk more heavily than she was willing to admit, and it was reassuring to note that he had never seen her drink more than one or two glasses of wine in the time that he'd known her, nor had he ever known her to be drunk or hungover in his company, but he wasn't so naïve as to think that the fact that she rarely drank, or at least drank with an audience, was the beginning and end of the story. He too had an addiction and saying that Connie was no longer an alcoholic was like saying that he was no longer an addict; she may not choose to drink to excess – and the jury was out over whether she was being entirely truthful with either him or herself – and he may choose not to go out and place a months rent on a horse in the three thirty but that didn't mean that he didn't want to. Every time he was in close proximity to a situation in which he could place a bet, he would feel his heart racing and an almost irresistible draw pulling him and his debit card towards the betting shop or roulette wheel. If he thought about it, he'd seen the same behaviour in Connie at times. At charity balls, he'd seen her looking longingly at a bottle of vodka mounted on the wall before ordering an orange juice, professing to want to keep a clear head for surgery the following morning. If he was honest, it always made him feel rather guilty as he sipped his whiskey, watching her, a paragon of virtue with her mind always on her job, knowing that she would be far more use than he in theatre the following morning. It had never occurred to him that there was a more sinister reason behind her abstinence. Even in her office, he'd seen her hand hover for longer than it normally would over the decanter of whiskey that Michael used to keep in her office, an item that made her wonder what sort of man Michael was to leave such temptation in his wife's way when he doubtless knew that she had a problem. It had never occurred to him that she was simply attempting to overcome her desire to drain the bottle and start on the gin, but with hindsight, perhaps it should have. After all, he was sure he'd never told Connie that he had a gambling problem, and unless Jess, Diane or Zubin had told her, an unlikely scenario because she was pretty near the bottom of the list of people whom any of them would confide in, it seemed that she had worked it out for herself. Perhaps she had seen the look of hunger in his eyes when a patient would be wheeled in, wielding a copy of the Racing Post or perhaps she had seen the guilt in his face when he would be implored by a naïve student nurse to enter the ward sweepstake, regardless of how many times Jess or Donna begged them not to. Whatever it was, it seemed that Connie had drawn her own conclusions, yet he had completely missed the signs of her addiction, signs that when he knew were blindingly obvious. Connie had been right when she said that he'd want to know why she drunk, but she was wrong to think that he'd force her to tell him. He knew how much he'd hate being pushed to explain what it was that drove him to gamble and he'd never put her in that position. What bothered him more than the truth of the matter, he mused as he retreated quickly back up the stairs, not wanting her to know that he had been listening in doorways, was the fact that once again, she had lied to him.


	8. This Woman's Work

'Are you sure you're alright' Ric eyed her nervously for the fifth time since the hearse had arrived less than two minutes earlier and she rolled her eyes with irritation, straightening her knee length black skirt and applying another coat of lipstick, looking altogether too immaculate and stylish for a supposedly distraught daughter attending her father's funeral. She looked more like she was preparing for a bout with the hospital board.

'I'm fine' she muttered soullessly, running a hand distractedly through her hair and refusing to meet his eye 'I do wish she'd pull herself together' she added with a scornful grimace in the general direction of her sobbing stepmother who stood in the doorway of the house, gazing heartbrokenly at the hearse that Connie was trying very hard not to look at 'it just isn't dignified'

'She's lost her husband' Ric frowned slightly, seeing nothing wrong with the older woman's display, although admittedly it was a little more public than would otherwise be ideal and he could see the twitching curtains as the neighbours all clamoured to take in the scene.

'And I've lost my father' Connie replied dully 'you don't see me collapsing in a grieving heap, providing the neighbours with a scene that they'll dine out on for years to come, do you?'

'No' he admitted, but silently he thought that he'd probably have preferred it if she had. Anything would be better than this frosty, uncaring demeanour that she seemed to have taken on since her exchange with her stepmother earlier in the day. If he was honest, it frightened him a little, and he suspected that her unaffected stance would probably not go down particularly well with the congregation of mourners collecting outside the house, ready for the short walk to the church. Her father had clearly been a popular man and he suspected that the opinion of his friends and relatives would be that his daughter had an obligation to at least pretend that she cared that he was no longer with them.

'Well then' she stated in an "I rest my case" tone, slowly beginning to make her way outside, eyes firmly averted from the hearse bearing her father's coffin as they made their way slowly to the funeral.

'So how did you know Robert?' an aged aunt stood, blocking his path, asking the question that he had dreaded since they arrived back at Leah's house for the wake. He was pretty sure that "I didn't, I'm just screwing his daughter" was not a response that would be well received, so he evaded the question.

'I'm a friend of Connie's' he shrugged eventually 'I'm here to support her more than anything'

'She's going to need it' the elderly woman smiled slightly maliciously and nodded towards the makeshift "bar" in the kitchen where Connie was on what looked horribly like her fourth or fifth glass of vodka, downing her drink as soon as Leah's back was turned 'She always was quite partial to a drink'

'I know' he nodded sombrely, desperately looking for a way to escape the woman in his path without knocking her and her Zimmer frame flying 'I should go and…'

'Leave her be' the aunt stated sagely 'she's attention seeking; she'll stop if you ignore her'

'I…' Ric trailed off with a single blink, the woman's quite outstanding stupidity rendering him momentarily speechless. Connie wasn't going to stop drinking if she thought that Ric hadn't seen her; if anything, she would drink more and more and then he would be faced once again with the horrible possibility of her making a speech. The scene at the charity ball a few weeks before had been bad; whatever she had to say about her father, he suspected would be worse.

'She did this at her mother's funeral' the aunt continued blithely and Ric felt his brow furrow with confusion as a niggling doubt as to the honesty of her story about her mother embedded itself in his mind; after all, she had been untruthful about her step mother and her drinking so there was no good reason why her story about her mother's death wasn't also a pack of lies.

'When she was eight?' he asked eventually, his eyes still fixed on Connie who was now attempting to get up and dance, something which he knew he would quickly have to put a stop to unless he wanted to see her crash through the glass front of the drinks cabinet.

'Eighteen' the aunt nodded, adjusting her hearing aid as Ric felt a chill sweep through him 'just before she started University. She went rather off the rails after that…'

'Really' his face was impassive as he made to sidestep the elderly woman and go and intercept Connie who was now standing still and looking worryingly like she was going to make a speech 'What happened to her mother?'

'Car accident' the woman dropped her voice 'Connie was trapped in the passenger seat for hours; she had to watch her mother slip away before her eyes, and yet when they got Connie out there was barely a scratch on her'

'That's terrible' he frowned and then saw Connie clear her throat in an ominous fashion 'will you excuse me. Lovely speaking to you' he pasted a false smile across his face and moved briskly to her side, clamping an arm round her middle to keep her upright and a kiss on her lips to keep her silent.

'What are you doing?' she exclaimed, struggling futilely in his grasp, fortunately no longer possessing the coordination to make a realistic attempt at escaping him.

'Taking you home' he replied shortly, his arms still around her middle as she stopped wriggling and leaned heavily against him 'I thought you didn't drink in front of your stepmother' he added, on the off chance that alcohol would have loosened her inhibitions and her lips and he might finally get some of the truth out of her.

'I don't' she said slowly, clearly having trouble articulating every syllable that she spoke 'today is an exception' she continued, slurring her words only slightly before finishing with a sad hiccup.

'Lets get you out of here' he muttered under his breath, spotting his escape route and starting to half drag her towards it, leaning her against him and feeling her head loll against his shoulder as she lost the ability to hold it upright. Apparently she was more drunk than she first appeared which was worrying because at first glance, she seemed virtually paralytic.

'Is she?' Leah was at his elbow, glaring at Connie who looked away with great difficulty and started to drag Ric towards the front door, stumbling with every step, clearly not in the mood for a confrontation about her alcohol consumption.

'Yes, she is' he nodded with a barely stifled sigh 'I'll talk to her about it in the morning. She's in no state for that particular conversation now'

'See that you do' Leah nodded 'she'll deny that she was all that drunk but don't let that put you off. She needs to be told'

'Thanks' he nodded, forcing Connie out of the front door before any stray aged relatives noticed the commotion that she was creating, resenting her step mother giving Ric any kind of advice on how to handle her. He knew how she felt – probably about as wretched as he had felt when he overheard Diane and Jess discussing ways of removing temptation from his way, including cutting up his debit card and locking him in Diane's computer-free flat on his days off. They hadn't intended for him to hear them but strangely it had probably done him a favour, making it clear just how much he was hurting the people he loved. That day, gambling lost some of its joy because it always carried a residue of guilt that made every loss a greater loss and tainted every win.

'Tell her I'll call her' Leah nodded towards Connie who had apparently gained a burst of energy and was wrestling with renewed vigour in Ric's arms, struggling to make her escape and doubtless, run to the nearest pub to get even more drunk 'I'd tell her myself but she won't remember in the morning'

'It's been nice meeting you' he nodded, laying Connie along the back seat and gratefully taking the waste paper bin that Leah held out, placing it beside her mouth. He suspected that if she threw up all over her own upholstery it would be his fault for not safeguarding against such circumstance rather than her own fault for getting this drunk in the first place.

'Likewise' Leah nodded and retreated into the house, taking a last look back at her stepdaughter who had fallen into a drunken slumber the moment that her head hit the car seat, knowing that she would probably never see her again.


	9. Sexed Up

Lying on his back, staring at the ceiling as she slept soundly beside him, worn out from the vigour of their earlier burst of activity and her excessive alcohol consumption, he found himself unable to sleep. Things that her family had mentioned – her drinking habits and the true circumstances of her mother's death in particular – niggled away at the back of his mind, keeping him permanently alert, despite the exhaustion that wracked his body. To find that she'd lied to him had been no surprise, he mused as he lay beside her sleeping form, mindlessly stroking her hair from her eyes with gentle sweeps of his fingers. To find that she'd lied to him about her drinking had also been strangely expected, and filled him with guilt at not realising sooner more than anger but he understood why she hadn't wanted to tell him about that; like he didn't like to broadcast his gambling habits to all and sundry, she was clearly less than proud of her own personal addiction and had been ashamed to tell him, probably fearing that if he knew then he would try and take care of her. On that score at least, she was wrong – if there was one thing that he'd learned about Connie it was that she despised anyone trying to care for her; she saw it as ruling her life and felt stifled, lashing out in a desperate bid to escape – and he knew better than to even try. What concerned him more than anything was her lie about her mother's death – there was no good reason on earth for her not to tell him the truth.

He must have dropped off at some point without realising because the next thing he was aware of was a low moan that came from somewhere to the left of his ear and echoed eerily around the room. For a moment he simply rolled over and pulled the pillow over his head, attributing the strange noise to a distressed dog belonging to the neighbours. It was when he heard a second moan, louder and more distressed than the last that he rolled over, noting with surprise that beside him Connie was thrashing her arms around as if trying to push some invisible assailant from her. He was awake in an instant, shaking her gently, fending off blows as she tried to slap him away, her eyes now open but unseeing, mistaking him for whoever she was so terrified of.

'Wake up' he pleaded, reaching over and switching on the bedside light, horrified by the sight of her face, pale and clammy, eerily illuminated by the harsh halogen lamp 'please, wake up' he continued, stroking her face as her eyelids began to flutter and she slowly came round, glancing fearfully around the room for a moment before her gaze came to rest on his face.

'Will you get off me please' she croaked and with a start he realised that he was sitting astride her, his hands on her shoulders, pinning her to the bed. Rolling over he watched as she sat up, calmly brushing her hair from her face and sipping the glass of water that sat by the bed, acting as though nothing had happened.

'You had a nightmare?' he asked eventually once a reasonable amount of time had passed and the panic that he had experienced had started to abate. In response she simply shrugged, pushing herself up from the bed and moving briskly to the bathroom, pausing only to pick up her bathrobe and grimace at her reflection in the full-length mirror of the bedroom.

'No' she snapped quickly; too quickly – it was obviously a lie. Pleasant dreams didn't make you cry in terror or lash out at unseen assailants. Whatever Connie had been dreaming about, it was clearly something very dark. Probably what she refuses to speak about, he mused to himself slightly bitterly as he lay back on the bed, listening to the sound of water raining down from the shower, waiting for her to return to bed.

'Better?' he enquired sleepily, his eyes closed as he heard the telltale creak of the bathroom door opening and her soft footfall on the laminate floor of the bedroom 'Do you want to talk about it?' he added on the off chance, knowing that it was an exercise in futility – she had retreated so far behind her legendary defences during the course of her shower, clearly loathing herself for letting him see her at her most vulnerable and he knew that if ever he was going to confide in him, it wasn't going to be tonight.

'Nothing to talk about' she retorted tensely, crawling into bed beside him, virtually clinging to the edge of the mattress in her desire to keep as much space between them as possible without incurring the questions that would arise from asking him to leave.

'You had a nightmare' it was a statement not a question but she ignored it anyway, closing her eyes and trying very hard to at least pretend to be asleep 'What was it about?'

'Nothing' she repeated, pulling more of the duvet off him and around her, cocooning herself in it as if protecting herself from something that he could not comprehend 'It's the middle of the night and we have work tomorrow. Go back to sleep'

'You're going to lie awake' he told her conversationally and she rolled over to face him, anger burning in her eyes and resentment oozing from every pore.

'Either stop being so irritatingly persistent or please leave' she snapped, pulling the remaining duvet from him and watching with something approaching sadistic pleasure as he shivered involuntarily.

'Fine' he relented and she returned the cover, pulling herself marginally closer to him as she did so, an act that he took as a silent request to be held. As soon as he put his arms around her he realised his mistake; her body tensed at his touch and she paled slightly.

'Sorry' they apologised simultaneously, colour filling their cheeks as she turned and looked away from him with embarrassment 'I can't help it'

'It's okay' he murmured, dropping her like a stone and shifting down the bed away from her, suspecting that her reaction was her bodies way of telling him that she needed space

'No, carry on' she insisted, following him across the bed and laying her head on his chest, once again flinching as their bodies connected 'ignore it; it'll pass'

'You're tense' he stated 'is this about your nightmare?'

'So you're taking the leaving option then' she remarked with accusation in her voice as she pulled away from him, moving back to clinging to the edge of the bed 'I'll see you at work'

'I'm not leaving' he sighed wearily 'I'm not going anywhere and that isn't going to change, no matter what it is that you're keeping from me'

'You don't know that' she retorted instantly 'I could be a child killer for all you know'

'Are you?' he didn't miss a beat before retorting but immediately he saw the way her face clouded over for a moment and her hesitation before answering and he felt his blood run cold. It wasn't that he thought that she was capable of cruelty – the possibility was so absurd that he couldn't begin to entertain it – but perhaps there was something in what she'd said. It had been something he often wondered about when watching her treat her younger patients; she wasn't generally credited with having a maternal bone in her body and yet the children at the hospital adored her and she adored them. Furthermore, he had seen the look of devastation on her face when Paris had died and seen the concern on Michael's face as he stood alongside his wife as they offered their condolences, but he had dismissed her reaction as simply a manifestation of the uselessness that they all felt at being unable to save the baby, despite their combined years of medical experience. More recently he had seen her body and noticed the thin silvery scar like stretch marks across her stomach and the barely perceptible scar that he recognised as a caesarean scar. At the time he had known better to ask and as he started to know her better and fear her rejection less, he also began to stop noticing these small imperfections, seeing only the bigger picture. The more he thought about it the more convinced he became that somewhere in the past Connie had lost a child and blamed herself. The current, very peculiar question only served to reinforce his suspicions.

'Are you' he repeated slowly

'No' she responded, without hesitation and he stifled a sigh; another lie then.


	10. After the Magic

The air in the car was thick with tension as she drove them home from work, both of them knowing how the evening was going to end. As they did every Friday night, they would eat a leisurely dinner picked up from the array of take away venues that they passed on the drive through the city centre. Often they would accompany this with a glass or two of wine, although recently she had noticed that since his conversation with her stepmother he tended to arrive with orange juice rather than red wine and showed little enthusiasm for raiding Michael's wine and whiskey collection as they had countless times before. She suspected that he felt as uncomfortable about bringing alcohol into her house as she would feel about buying him a Racing Post instead of the Times on her regular Saturday morning foray to the newsagents. Time and time again she tried to convince him that she really had no problem with alcohol but he didn't buy it for a second and grew tense every time she had so much as half a glass of wine with dinner. Strangely she found that she didn't particularly mind this; if he was working himself up about her drinking then he wasn't trying to get to the bottom of her nightmares.

Up until their return from her father's house she firmly believed that the nightmares were under control; she hadn't experienced one since the night before she married Michael and fifteen years on, she certainly hadn't expected them to return with a vengeance. Along with the return of the nightmares had come the return of the problem that had always gone hand in hand with them; her hatred of being touched. When she'd first met Michael she would flinch if he so much as brushed against her in the kitchen the morning after and could only bring herself to allow him to sleep with her once she had consumed a sizeable quantity of alcohol and even then she would flinch at the first sign of intimacy instead of the fast furious lovemaking that had been Michael's specialty. Like Ric, Michael had noticed that there was a problem and in his arrogance, he had decided that he would be the one to 'fix' her. She had told him everything that had happened to her, from the circumstances of her mother's death to her issues with alcohol to the things she was so ashamed of that she had barely been able to articulate; he responded with a proposal of marriage. At the time she had been livid, thinking that he had asked her out of pity but now she realised that it was worse than that. By marrying her he had given himself his greatest challenge to date and over the fifteen years that they were together, he had failed spectacularly in his quest to repair the damage that another man had inflicted upon her. The only good thing that he had done for her was to cure her of her nightmares, and she suspected that their absence had as much to do with the presence of a man in general as being with Michael in particular. For fifteen years she had struggled to rebuild her life, becoming more successful than she had ever dreamt she could be, finally leaving her troubled past behind her, or so she thought. Recently she felt as terrified as she had when Michael had rescued her from her own personal hell and taken it upon himself to play Knight in Shining Armour, an act which he soon tired of, leaving her floundering hopelessly at his side, desperately trying to keep up with him and his upper class twit friends who looked down on her with barely disguised contempt. Worse still, Michael's attempt to 'cure' her had entailed large amounts of affection and the intimacy that she loathed and so she had pushed him away leaving him to wonder why the woman he had married couldn't stand to have him touch her. Over the years she had gotten over her aversion to any kind of contact with her husband and had even gone so far as to allow some of the casual partners that had been the currency of their marriage to hold her afterwards. Now she was back at square one; no matter how much she craved Ric's touch and wanted him to hold her, the moment his arms slipped around her she would feel every muscle in her body tense and worse still, he felt her anxiety and barely seemed to want to touch her any more but why would he sign up for continual rejection? Far easier to keep his distance and deny that there was a problem.

They entered the house in silence, Ric making his way straight to the kitchen where he served two plates of curry and passed her one, wincing as she flinched as his thumb brushed the back of her hand. It was a completely innocent action, as harmless as being knocked against someone on the tube or jostled in a crowd and yet her body reacted forcibly; she dropped the plate.

'Don't worry' he murmured soothingly, scooping the remains of curry and shards of crockery up with a tea towel and throwing the whole lot in the bin 'hey, you know what they say'

'What's that' she mumbled through tears that spilled onto her reluctant cheeks where her hand was ready and waiting to obliterate them before he noticed and grew concerned.

'No use crying over spilt curry' he chuckled to himself, standing up but making no move to comfort her beyond passing her a tissue and averting his eyes, knowing how much she would hate to cry in front of him.

'No, this is ridiculous; I never used to be this jumpy' she heard her voice crack, despising herself as she heard it rise slightly with mild hysteria and yet she found that now she'd started she couldn't stop and she stopped speaking, the silence penetrated only by the gentle sound of her tears dropping to the cold slate tiles of the kitchen floor. For a long time he kept his distance, watching her uncertainly, not knowing how to comfort her but as he watched her knees finally buckle and her crumple to the ground he realised that doing something had to be better than doing nothing. Tentatively he moved closer to her, putting an arm around her and trying very hard to ignore the way she flinched at his touch as she leaned into him and then he kissed her. The only way she would allow him to touch her these days was if they were in bed together and even then it had to be furious and utterly impersonal. He hated it but she needed it so he reluctantly obliged, learning very quickly that his attempts to work affection into their new routine were not well received; the last time he'd tried she'd spent half an hour in the bathroom throwing up, emerging only to tell him to have gone by the time she'd finished. At that point, he thought he'd lost her but to his immense surprise and concern she had been waiting for him on Monday morning when he arrived at work, full of apologies, almost begging him to forgive her. He'd taken little persuading.

As soon as his lips met hers her movements became frantic, almost ravenous as she tore at his clothes with such urgency that he watched the buttons ping from his shirt and dance across the kitchen floor but she barely noticed; she was already working on relieving him of his trousers with such brisk efficiency that he found himself suddenly naked in the kitchen.

'Bedroom' she gasped eventually, releasing his lips and running ahead of him up the stairs, keeping just enough distance between them for it to be awkward for him to reach out and lead her to the bedroom as he once had. Pushing open the door they collapsed in a writhing heap of limbs on the bed, her lips planting butterfly kisses down the length of his torso, leaving a lipstick trail where they had been. It was as he made to respond that he felt the shiver run through her and the all too familiar tension return to her body and sighed. This was a new one; as long as he didn't attempt to hold her or bring any kind of personal touch to the act, she would allow him to screw her as hard and as often as he liked, in fact she positively encouraged him. For a moment they eyed each other in horror and then she was on her feet, bolting for the bathroom and dropping to her knees, turning to shut the door only after she had parted company with most of her lunch.

For ten minutes he sat in the bedroom feeling utterly useless as he heard her throw up and sob in the bathroom, but could see no point in going in to comfort her; it would only make her more distressed. It was when it went ominously quiet that he moved from the bed, making brisk progress across the floor before opening the door and feeling a chill overcome him at the sight that greeted him.


	11. Truth

'Jesus Connie, what have you done?' he was at her side in an instant, taking in the small cuts that ran across her hands from the broken glass and the pills that scattered across the bathroom tiles with shards of glass from the bottle that she'd smashed and the large bottle of vodka that sat virtually empty beside her 'and where did you get _that_?'

'It was in there' she gestured towards the space beneath the sink 'Michael never thought to look there'

'Precisely how many of these have you had?' he scrabbled about on the floor for a moment, extracting the remnants of a label belonging to a bottle of diazepam. Fuck.

'I haven't' she insisted, slurring her words a little 'I couldn't get into the bottle…'

'So you smashed it' he sighed heavily, tentatively examining the damage to her hands concluding that the cuts were not as deep as they looked and would probably do little more than keep her out of surgery for a week, a situation that was no bad thing considering the state that she was in 'What the hell were you planning to do?'

'I thought they might relax me' she protested, her drunken form slumping against him as he led her into the bedroom and sat her down on the bed, gently rubbing her upper thigh 'I wasn't going to OD or anything'

'Really' he remarked, not entirely sure whether he believed her 'Strange as it may be, Connie, sex with a woman out of her mind on narcotics is not my idea of a good time'

'Well fuck off then' she retorted, the alcohol destroying her inhibitions and making her more crude than she would ever dream of being were she sober.

'No' he replied stubbornly, moving into the bathroom and extracting a pack of surgical dressings before starting to clean up the mess of her hands, relieved to see that most of the wounds that crisscrossed her palms were relatively superficial. Only one wound gave him a cause for concern and it was not so much the depth of the wound that worried him as the location; the cuts to her palms were explained by smashing the bottle but how the hell had she managed to sustain a jagged cut across her wrist? Miraculously she seemed to have missed all her arteries and nerves but he suspected that this was not her intention.

'That was an accident' she told as she saw his eyes widen at the sight of the injury to her wrist 'I wasn't trying to…'

'Right' he replied, utterly unconvinced 'by rights I should be calling you an ambulance'

'Why, my hands aren't that bad…' she trailed off as realisation dawned upon her and a flush spread up her cheeks 'you wouldn't dare'

'Oh believe me I would' he replied, his voice betraying a strength that he didn't feel 'You need help Connie; whatever it is that's fucked you up you need to learn to control it before you do yourself even more comprehensive damage'

'If you did that my career would be over; you wouldn't – it would be like signing my death warrant' she stated with confidence and he had to admit that she had a point; he wouldn't dare jeopardise her career because to do so would set her on a path to self destruction that would be tantamount to murder.

'So instead I should sit back at watch you kill yourself? I think that's just as bad, don't you?' he retorted with a conviction that he didn't feel 'You need help and I'm going to see to it that you get it'

'I don't need help' she protested, pulling her hand from his grasp and emitting a squeak of pain as her wounds were further assaulted 'just get out and leave me alone'

'No' he repeated, taking her by the arm, being careful not to touch any of the cuts that adorned her hands and wrists and bought her back to the bed, sitting her down and crouching in front of her as he finished tending to her palms with a tenderness that he didn't feel 'I'm not going to leave you alone to do something even worse to yourself. It seems to me you have two options…'

'And what might they be?' she interrupted angrily, pushing him from her once again and standing up, pacing the room furiously, pausing only to kick the door with temper, the look she gave him making it abundantly clear that really she would have been kicking his head.

'Number one, you tell me what you're having nightmares about and why you've told me so many lies'

'And the other option?' she demanded, her face impassive although she feared she knew what it was.

'I call an ambulance, you get taken in for psychiatric assessment and probably kiss your career goodbye; no psychiatrist on earth is going to believe that this wasn't an attempt to take your own life' he stated, pulling her wrist and gesticulating at the gash that still dripped blood onto the white cotton bedcover 'Which is it to be Connie'

'Option number three, you fuck off home and leave me to get on with my life however I choose'

'No; I don't want your death on my conscience and I sure as hell don't want you haunting me' he emitted a slightly bitter laugh 'which I suppose leaves us with one option – you're going to have to talk to me'

'I'm going to do no such thing – what's going to happen is that you're going to leave before I have to make you' she gave him a stubborn glare, his derisive laugh only serving to increase her anger about him 'What's so funny?'

'How do you propose to make me leave?' he enquired with slight amusement in her voice as she kicked the door again with rage at him

'Quite simple really – either you leave or I do this properly…' she held up her wrist and allowed one long nail to run down it, clearly intending to rip the wound open with her bare hands 'Goodbye?'

'No' he replied bluntly, amazing himself as much as her with his persistence but if he was honest, he was getting a perverse buzz from the whole situation, making bets with himself over whether he would be able to talk her out of doing something incredibly stupid; it was like surgery in that he held her life in his hands and there was no high like it 'if you do that, all you'll achieve is forcing my hand; I'll have to call an ambulance and you'll have to be sectioned. I'm giving you a way out Connie – you should take it'

'What the hell do I care if you call an ambulance? I'll be dead' she stated, her voice slightly taunting, daring him to believe that he could save her life after she had made up her mind to end it.

'No you won't' he sighed mildly, watching as she ran one long fingernail down her arm 'Will you stop that, you're making it worse'

'Will you leave?' she asked again but she already knew the answer and wasn't remotely surprised when he shook his head but she already had her next offensive planned and changed tack, suddenly going from serious suicide risk to steely medical director 'Ric, I'm asking you to leave. This is my home, please show me some respect and get out'

'Fine' he stood up and she surveyed him triumphantly has he made to collect up his clothes and made his way to the front door, turning back and surveying her with sadness in his eyes 'you should know that as soon as I leave here I'm calling an ambulance for you'

'Then I'm going to take a kitchen knife to my arm' she retorted instantly having anticipated such a response from him 'I'll be dead long before the ambulance get here and then you really will have my death on your conscience'

'Fine, I'll leave' he sighed with defeat and reached out, placing a hand on her shoulder, not caring when she flinched 'Just tell me one thing Connie; what is it that scares you most about telling me the truth?'

'That you'll loathe me and leave' she retorted immediately and a flush crept up her face as she realised the flaw in her logic; she was so terrified that he'd leave her that she ended up lashing out at him and pushing him away.

'Connie, believe me, if listening to you talk about carving yourself up with a kitchen knife doesn't stop me loving you then whatever it is that you're so scared of telling me certainly won't make me love you any less. Surely you must see how ridiculous this is…' his voice took on a note of pleading and to his amazement, her expression thawed slightly and the note of fear returned to her eyes, replacing the look of stubborn hatred that had previously occupied them.

'Screw you' she murmured desolately, stepping aside and allowing him to come back into the house 'you should know how much I hate you for this'

'I know' he smiled, chancing a squeeze of her shoulder as he passed her and to his relief, she didn't flinch, the alcohol having dulled that particular reflex 'it'll pass'

'Yeah' she sighed soullessly 'and then you'll hate me'


	12. Journey to the Past

'What do you want to know' she asked resentfully once he had redressed the wound on her arm and presented her with a mug of coffee, rather humiliatingly prepared in a plastic cup giving her nothing that she could turn into an impromptu weapon if she decided to stage a repeat performance of her earlier antics.

'Why don't we start with what it is that makes you wake up screaming in the middle of the night' he suggested gently and gave her hand a soft squeeze 'you had no problem with me touching you before the nightmares started; tell me about them'

'What about them?'

'What is it that you dream about?' he pressed and to his immense surprise tears snaked down her unwilling cheeks and fell onto the back of her hand.

'It's more like a flashback than a dream' she started tentatively 'it happened over twenty years ago, and yet I can recreate it in such detail that it feels like I'm reliving it in its entirety'

'Your mothers death?' he frowned slightly and she slumped a little in her chair, taking a large mouthful of coffee before replying

'Who told you about my mother?' she asked eventually, well aware that someone had exposed her lies and more to the point, that for the past three weeks he had known that she had told an appalling lie and carried on as if nothing had happened.

'Someone mentioned it at the funeral' he shrugged 'not Leah – I think it was your aunt'

'She always was a loose lipped old…' for a moment the venom of the woman he used to know returned but all too quickly it dissipated 'I'm sorry, I shouldn't have lied to you like that; it was a terrible thing to do'

'So why did you?' he asked, not disputing the wrongness of her actions but not able to bring himself to blame her either 'I don't understand Connie'

'The nightmares aren't just about mum's death, although that's part of it' she shut her eyes for a moment, composing herself before continuing 'I dream that I'm in the car with her and they're cutting me out and then the scene changes and I'm with him'

'Who? Michael?' confusion was etched on Ric's face and she looked away, unable to bear to see his reaction to what she was going to tell him, terrified that he would be appalled by her. Michael's reaction hadn't exactly reassured her that people would be accepting of what had happened to her; he had balked at the idea, disappearing for a couple of weeks that she strongly suspected he spent with his secretary before coming back with an unstoppable desire to save her soul.

'No, not Michael' her voice fell to a whisper as she struggled to carry on speaking, resentment dripping from every word that she spoke only because he had left her no option 'In my first term at university there was a man. I was a first year, he was a fifth year; he was exotic and so mature compared to most of the boys in my year and I suppose I fell for him. Really it was nothing more than a schoolgirl crush but he decided that he wanted more and he didn't take no for an answer'

'He…' for a moment Ric groped for the least emotive term for what had been done to her, not wanting to distress her further by exaggerating the point more than was absolutely unavoidable, all the time feeling a strange sense of déjà vu. This certainly wasn't the first time he'd had this conversation; he vividly remembered sitting with Diane as she told him about the older man she'd met when she was a wide-eyed, naïve student and recalled the sick feeling in his stomach that he felt when she'd told him that the man hadn't taken no for an answer; the same feeling as he felt now.

'Forced himself upon me' Connie flinched as she spoke the words that she had always dreaded staying, feeling nausea rise within her but somehow she managed to stifle it 'That's what the nightmares are about; twenty years later I can still smell the alcohol on his breath and feel the sickness that came from whatever he'd put into my drink'

'He drug raped you?' Ric frowned slightly having presumed that what had happened had involved more violence than she described, although that didn't make what had happened to her any less appalling.

'They weren't very good drugs' she stated bitterly 'they did the job; knocked me out sufficiently that I was in no state to fight him off but that made it worse. He was on top of me doing all of the filthy things that he wanted to with me and I couldn't do a damn thing about it – I didn't even have the strength to struggle but I was aware of every fucking move that he made. I wish that I had been unconscious'

'Did you report it?' he asked eventually, resisting the urge to put his arms around her and hold her, knowing that her reaction to such affection would probably be aversive

'No, that's the really good part' she emitted a bitter laugh and for a moment he wondered how much worse it was going to get 'His father was the Dean of Medicine at the university and he made it abundantly clear that if I made any sort of complaint about it, he would use his father's connections to have me thrown off my course. I couldn't take that risk; he'd already taken too much from me – he wasn't going to steal my ambition as well'

'No, I'd say your ambition was still very much alive' Ric replied with a small laugh and to his relief she glanced up from where her gaze had been fixed on the bottom of her coffee cup and gave a timid smile.

'I should have reported him though; it was selfish of me to leave him free to do the same to countless other students time and time again, just for the sake of my career. I mean I was intelligent – there'd have been other medical courses and now I have to wonder whether he had as much power as he made out but then I was young and naïve, not to mention completely destroyed. I fell for it hook line and sinker'

'You're concerned that he did the same to other women after you?' Ric frowned, again feeling as though he was reliving a conversation with Diane shortly after Dominic's death in which she comprehensively beat herself up about what had happened to Emma, utterly convinced that had she spoken out about what he'd done to her she could have saved countless other students the same fate that she had suffered.

'I was concerned about that' she admitted slowly 'For years all I could think when I closed my eyes at night was that he was out there somewhere doing the same to another unsuspecting eighteen year old'

'What changed?'

'I found out that he had raped at least two other women and probably dozens and dozens that I don't know about' she took a deep breath as Ric felt an unpleasant sense that he knew exactly where this conversation was going and he desperately hoped that he was wrong 'after that it was the guilt that kept me awake at night'

'Who was it' he asked dully, almost entirely sure that he knew the answer and not for the first time feeling immensely glad that it had been partly his medical blunder that had led to the death of the monster that she described.

'You know who it was' she sighed, looking into his eyes sadly 'I could have prevented Diane going through what she went through, not to mention every other girl he's taken advantage of in the last twenty years'

'You shouldn't blame yourself' he finally managed to reassure her having been rendered temporarily speechless by her revelation and by loathing for the man who's life he had watched slip away six month's earlier.

'You haven't heard the punch line yet' she stated humourlessly and he felt his heart sink; how much worse could it possibly get?


	13. All That You Can't Leave Behind

'There's more?' he enquired weakly as finally she tore her eyes from where her gaze was fixed on the cup of coffee in her hands and looked up at him.

'Feel free to leave at any point' she told him dully, her misery so intense that it was almost palpable 'I won't think any less of you'

'I told you, I'm not going to leave' he stated firmly, despite a small part of his mind screaming at him to run for the hills and never return. Once again, he was faced with a woman devastated by one man's sick perversion and lack of self worth and once again, he hadn't the first idea how to deal with any of it. Despite the similarities in the crime that had been perpetrated against them, Connie and Diane couldn't be more different. Connie was as destructive as Diane was sensitive; as strong as Diane was fragile and as bitter towards herself as Diane was towards her attacker. The crimes may have been virtually identical but the effects on the victims were entirely different and he felt as though any small amount of experience he may have gained through trying to support Diane was worthless when dealing with Connie.

'Yet' Connie sighed ominously and his suspicion that this story was going to get worse before it got better, grew. It seemed eminently possible that Connie believed that he would hate her, simply because she believed that she had held the power to stop Diane being attacked – to halt Dominic Fryer before he was able to hurt any more women – but he couldn't shake the fear that there was something else that caused both her own self loathing and her unwavering conviction that once she had finished speaking, he would hate her.

'Go on then' he encouraged gently, sighing as she tensed as he reached out and placed his hand on top of hers. Clearly offloading the massive burden of guilt and bitterness that she carried was not delivering her the catharsis that he had hoped it would.

'After what happened, I went rather off the rails. It was a bit like a late teenage rebellion; I was always drunk, stoned or hungover and my grades took a nosedive. Ironically despite my fear of being thrown off my course for reporting Dominic, I took myself dangerously close to being thrown off for never going to classes or handing in essays. Strangely though, I think I almost wanted to be thrown off; at least then it would have been my doing rather than something inflicted on me for doing what was right and once I was off the course, nothing stood between me and reporting him. In fact, I suspect that the only reason I was asked to defer the year instead of being told to leave and not return was that Dominic panicked and pulled whatever strings to make sure that he still had a hold over me' eventually she paused for breath, snatching her hands from beneath his and cupping them shakily over her face for a moment, attempting to calm herself.

'So you took some drugs and drank a bit when you were at Uni' he shrugged, feeling that dismissing her behaviour as no big deal was probably the best way to deal with her revelations 'We've all done that'

'My drinking and drug taking was hardly in the same league to your liking for a bit of cannabis very occasionally' she paused for a moment, as if debating the merits of continuing 'The difference is, I didn't stop at vodka shots and a joint; that's how it started but after a while my search for an artificial high and something to blot out the memory of what he did drove me to substances much stronger than alcohol and cannabis'

'You mean…?'

'Coke, ecstasy, opiates; you name it, I took it' she exhaled a shaky breath, looking at him as if she was waiting for him to react in some way. He didn't, instead merely gazing back at her, waiting for her to continue with her story.

'What stopped you?' he asked eventually as it became clear that she wasn't going to continue until he reacted, even if it was to stand up, walk out of the door and not return. Clearly she found his silence as unnerving as he found the look of bewilderment on her face.

'I uh…' she froze, taking on the expression of a rabbit in headlights as she tried desperately to find a way to answer his question. Apparently for all that she wanted to, she couldn't find it in her to share with him the last vestiges of her past. Part of him wanted to take her in his arms and hold her, whispering that she didn't have to continue if she didn't want to. That she, like everyone else, was entitled to some secrets, but equally it had taken him so long and so many nights of arguments and tears to get to this point, he was reluctant to stop her now. In the end she took the decision out of his hands, pushing her chair back from the table and standing up, her usual impassive mask returning to her face.

'Connie?' he gazed up at her, bemusement oozing from every pore as she made her way briskly to the sink and poured a large glass of water, sipping it slowly as if trying to calm herself. Despite the fact that outwardly, she appeared as steady as a rock, he knew her well enough to see past the façade and know that inside she was still churning.

'I don't want to discuss that' she stated firmly, placing her glass down beside her and making no move towards him as he stood in bewilderment, wondering what to do next 'I don't want to discuss any of it. Now you know why I'm such a…' for a moment she groped around for a suitable term to describe herself but found none 'Why I'm me' she finished firmly 'you can leave'

'I don't want to leave' he sighed sombrely, reaching out and touching her, watching as she snatched back her hand as if he had somehow burnt her.

'I'd like you to go. I'd like to be alone' her eyes were pleading but he noticed the way her fingernail ran, almost involuntarily over the dressing on her wrist, as if she'd dearly love to prise open her wound once again and he knew that he couldn't leave her. For all the truth that had been aired in the past couple of hours, still she was far too unstable to be left alone and he suspected that taking all potential weapons, from the kitchen knives to the contents of the medicine cupboard with him would only serve to antagonise her further.

'If I stay it doesn't mean that we have to talk' he tried tentatively, feeling his heart sink as her face remained cold and expressionless 'we could get a take away. Hire a film. Do all of the things that we usually do at the weekend'

'Ric, it's Tuesday and I have a shift in eight hours. The only place I'm going is to bed' she stated wearily, looking at him with contempt, as if he was stupid. Suddenly he felt how it was to be Michael Beauchamp, the only other person who he had ever witnessed receiving the look which she now gave him; a look of disappointment and irritation, verging on hatred, mingled with an expression of exhausted affection. It make him feel almost unbearably small and immediately he felt an all too familiar impulse; a desire to seek out the nearest casino, bookmaker or online poker website and blow a months salary. If he left now, it wouldn't only spell disaster for her; there was every chance that he'd waste nine hard months of abstinence and disappoint all of those people who believed that he could beat his own addiction. He couldn't take the risk.

'I have a shift in eight hours' he stated with a false smile spreading across his face; happiness that he did not feel 'We can go in together…'

'You need a new suit' she gestured towards the crumpled shirt and trousers that he had been wearing for well over twelve hours 'you need a shower and you need a shave or people will talk'

'Connie, I really couldn't care less what Donna Jackson thinks…' he began but she silenced him with a single glare of contempt, the kind normally reserved for incompetent nurses and mechanics who fail to fix a piece of machinery and announce after several hours of trying that they need to call someone else in or send the machine away. He wasn't used to receiving it himself – for all that they'd had their differences, she did at least hold some respect for members of the senior surgical staff that was missing from her dealings with lower members of staff.

'Ric, if you don't leave then I will' she stated icily and he felt his heart rate quicken with panic. If she left it would have much the same effect as if he walked out of the door; she would more than likely to something drastic involving her car and a lamppost and he would be straight on her computer, assaulting his credit cards at any number of online casinos and poker sites.

'Connie, my head's pounding and it's late; I really don't feel up to driving halfway across town at this hour, especially when I have to be at work early tomorrow' he tried, a note of pleading in his voice; he knew how she loved to watch a man beg and if that was what it took then he was more than happy to oblige 'I'm asking for a sofa to sleep on, not marriage or sexual favours. After tomorrow if you want me to stay away from you then that's fine but for tonight, please…' he trailed off, both of them knowing that if she turned around in the morning and told him that she never wanted to see him again it would be anything but fine. It would be beyond suicide; more like double murder.

'Fine, sleep on the sofa, be gone by the time I get up in the morning and don't even think about coming upstairs' she stated in clipped tones 'Goodnight'

'Goodnight Connie' he stated wearily, watching as she swept past him and up the stairs, her façade already beginning to crumble as she disappeared from view, her shoulders trembling slightly.

Fatigue was evident in his movements as he moved the collection of cushions that littered the black leather sofa to one end and extracted a thick woollen blanket from the hall cupboard, throwing it over the sofa forming his makeshift bed, before crawling beneath the covers and closing his eyes wearily. Upstairs he could hear her moving and, he was almost certain, crying, but strangely this didn't bother him. As long as she was making a noise above him he didn't feel the need to tiptoe upstairs and check that she was still alive. It was when she fell silent that he began to panic and crept stealthily to the foot of the stairs, beginning his silent ascent before retreating briskly away when he heard her moan in her sleep. Returning to his bed he barely stifled a sigh; it was going to be a long night.


End file.
